M.U.L.E
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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M.U.L.E. is about four hopeful explorers trying to make a fortune on a virgin planet. This is done by producing various goods (Food, Energy, Smithore, Crystite). Each of these goods have their uses: if you don't have enough food, you will have less time during your turn. If you don't have enough energy, your output will be lower. If enough smithore isn't produced, there will be a shortage of M.U.L.E.s. Crystite is the big earner that can make or break your game.

You start the game by selecting your race. Some are easier to play, some harder. There are three levels of difficulty, in the easiest the game only lasts 6 turns, but the real game is 12 turns. Crystite is not available at the easiest level.

Each turn starts with land claim. Each player gets to choose a spot of land for themselves from the map. If two players choose the same spot, the player with less money wins. The map consists of different landscape. River is best for producing food, plains for energy, mountains for smithore. Crystite is hidden and must be first found by taking a land sample to the town.

After the land claim each player takes turns in cultivating their land and do other tasks. They can buy M.U.L.E.s to start production on their land, sabotage other players by buying M.U.L.E.s and letting them loose, try to catch the Wumpus for cash and try to find crystite veins. The time to do these things depends on if the player has enough food. Finally the player goes to the casino and wins a small amount of money, depending on how much time was left.

After the cultivation phase is the production phase where each land produces an amount of goods depending on a number of factors such as if the player has enough energy in storage, what type of land is used, and some random events such as sunspots that increase energy output. Also, if the same player has plots producing the same goods next to each other, they gain a bonus. Three plots of same production type anywhere on the map by the same player also gives a bonus.

Third phase is the most interesting one: the auction. Here the players buy and sell their goods on open market. Players negotiate the price by moving up and down on the screen. The shop also has prices that depend on how abundant or scarce the goods is. So if there is a shortage of food, the price goes up and vice versa. This allows for interesting tactics, especially if one player manages to monopolize food, energy or smithore production. If there is no food, others don't have time to change their production types, if there is a shortage of energy, their land won't produce and if there are no M.U.L.E.s they can't change production type on their plot. Hoarding goods also has a drawback in the form of surplus where each turn a percentage of goods is wasted. 

There are a number of random events in the game. Some affect one player, usually the one winning gets small penalties and the losing player(s) get small rewards. The big events that happen randomly are: - M.U.L.E. goes crazy - the M.U.L.E. on one of the plots runs away losing production for that round plus the money to replace it. - Planetquake - production of smithore and crystite is much lower. - Fire in store - all stock in the shops are destroyed (which means prices will skyrocket, but if you needed to buy something, you are at the mercy of other players). - Pirate attack - pirates steal all crystite from stores and players (in the easiest level they steal smithore). Nasty if you happened to have a lot of them waiting for better prices. - Acid rain storm - affects the plot under the storm and below it by boosting food production and decreasing energy production. - Sunspot activity - increases energy production. - Pest attack - eats all food on one plot. - Meteor strike - destroys the M.U.L.E on the plot it strikes but creates a very rich crystite plot.

M.U.L.E always has four players, with 1-4 human players possible and the rest played by the AI. Because the players only need two buttons at most (up/down in auction) in auction, it's easy to play with four people around the computer. 

M.U.L.E is a very finely tuned game where rewards, penalties, time to use for various tasks etc. have been perfectly fine tuned to keep the game balanced. Rules and the random events mean that no two games are the same.

M.U.L.E. is a diversified enconomic simulation with an inventive background and surely belongs to the most interesting games, which have ever been written for the C64.

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Course of the game

Start of the game: the spaceship lands on Irata

the store, the main menu of the game
Up to 4 players can take part in a game (that is at a computer) at the same time. Their task is colonisation of the planet IRATA (which is Atari read backwards). Every player takes over the role of a settler, whose character can be chosen from 8 different species with different skills. The most important utensils of the settlers are the M.U.L.E.s. This abbreviation is short for Multiple Use Labor Element, but does not without reason read as "Mule". This because sometimes MULEs can be very stubborn. At the start of a round 4 of the 44 plots are raffled off. During this the focus goes from plot to plot and whoever presses the fire button quickest, will be awarded the plot.

The following phase will be played by every player alone, while the others have to watch. First a MULE has to be bought in the town and then it needs to be equipped for a certain purpose, depending on what resource should be cultivated on that plot. The resources are needed for further settlement, only when there is a surplus they should be sold on the market. A countdown sees to it that the player makes quick decisions. MULEs, that have not been installed on a plot after time has run out, run away and the land will lie waste in this round.

In the subsequent trading round, trading phases for every single resource are played. Every player can define at the beginning, if he will function as seller or buyer. The local shop will be buyer and seller, so the price ceiling and the lower price limit are set. The shop can only sell as many units as were sold to it in the previous rounds. So it can be worth not selling a good for a few rounds, to boost the price, as the resources are urgently needed by the players: without energy the MULEs do not cultivate anything, the reserves of food determine how much time a player has in his single phase. MULEs are made from smithore, a high smithore price leads directly to a high price for M.U.L.E.s.

Crystite (only tournament) is a mere luxury good, with which you can make the biggest profits. The Crystite price is the only resource in the game which is not bound to the principle of demand and supply. But beware: In every round there is an incident. If the planet is attacked by pirates, all Crystite stock will be stolen.
The winner is the player who has acquired the most capital at the end of the game. 

There are three difficulty levels:
Beginner
The game ends after 6 rounds, plots are alloted at the beginning of every round, food, energy, smithore, price limits, fixed MULE prices.
Standard
12 rounds, land auctions, 14 M.u.l.e ´s in the shop (new ones through smithore), price fluctuations, no price ceilings. The pirates can appear and steal smithore.
Tournament
same as standard, only additionally with Chrystite (further mineral), smithore samples, private trade. When the pirates appear, they steal Chrystite.

You can choose between eight different characters with different advantages and disadvantages, there are always four characters playing simultaneously at the auctions, the computer replaces the missing human players, three difficulty levels, catchy background music, good cartoon-like graphics and fast movement of the sprites.

 Controls

 - to abort the intro, press the fire button
F3   - to choose the beginner, standard or tournament version
F5   - to set the number of players from 0 to 4. (When choosing 0, the computer plays a demonstration game, missing players are substitued by the copmuter).
F7   - to start the game.
In the game 
F1   - to pause the game or to restart the intro and the choice of character
 - speed up computer player.

You need at least one joystick to play M.U.L.E. When playing with two or more players, up to two players will use the keyboard during the action phases. The following keys are used:

Left keyboard player: Q   - "up", C=  - "down" 
Right keyboard player: ^   - "up", =  - "down" 
Both players: both keys - fire button
During the Development Round the players can use any available joystick.

 Training game (Beginner)

1. Choose character
Decide for a Bonzoid
The computer shows 4 colours in succession. The player that presses the fire button first gets this one during the game. After you have decided for a colour, choose your character. Draw the joystick into the direction of the desired charachter and it will appear in the middle, below that a short description of the character will be shown. Press the fire button to finalize your choice or look at another character. After that the computer will show the colours that are left for the other players and so on.

2. Game overview (Status Summary)
You and all the other players start with $1000 money and $300 in food and energy (Goods)

3. Land grant (Land Grant)
Choose a parcel at the river
The land grant is your opportunity to get a free parcel in every round. When the moving square is placed over the desired parcel, press fire. The parcel will now be shown in your colour.

4. Deciding about production
Decide to produce food on your river parcel.
Your parcel will flash as soon as it is your turn. Now you need to decide what sould be produced there. Mountains are best to mine Smithore, river land is especially suited for growing food and on flat land energy should be produced.

5. Equip your M.U.L.E
Equip one of your M.U.L.E to produce food (M.U.L.E. in the town to upper right).
When you press the fire button the town zooms in. Go into the Corral, take a M.U.L.E. and bring it to the outfitting shop. If the time bar (right) has run down, your move will end, no matter what you do at that moment.

6. Install your M.U.L.E.
Now you are ready to install your M.U.L.E.
To install a M.U.L.E. just lead it out of the town onto your parcel. Press the fire button when your character is over the house. If you miss it you will hear a beep. Try it once again. As soon as your M.U.L.E. is installed it turns into a production symbol. Your parcel is now ready to produce food, energy or smithore.

7. Catch the Wampus
You have somw time left. Catch the Wampus ?
The Wampus lives in caves in the mountains. When he opens his door, his bell rings and a small light flashes. If you catch him, he will pay you for his freedom. To catch the Wampus you need to be out of the town without a M.U.L.E. When you see his light then touch him. Good luck!

8. The pub
As soon as you enter the pub you automatically win money. But with this you also end your move. The more time is left, the more money you will get.

9. Random occurrences
You cannot rely on random occurrences as earthquakes, acid rain or pest attacks, but they happen.

10. Production
Your river parcel now produces 5 units of food
The production is done automatically, you only see it. Each small square that appears on the left side of your parcel represents one unit.

11. The local store (Store)
There is a store in the game that is taken over by the computer. During the auctions it will buy and sell food, energy and ores. It starts with 16 units food, 16 units energy and withour ores. After the start the stock will depend on what the players buy and sell.

12. Player status
Now you have a surplus of food
Per round 3 auctions will be held, each one for ores, food and energy. Each auction starts with the display of your status for each resource. A bar shows by growing and shrinking how high the starting value was, how much you have used, how much has gone bad abd how much has been produced in the last move. A line shows you if you have a deficit or a surplus for the next round (except for ores, these are not critical for survival). Finally you get shown how much of each product can be found in the shop.

13. Register as buyer/seller
Register as seller in the food auction
Move the joystick forwards or backwards to register as seller or buyer. You can change the registration as often as you like until the time for registration has run out (time bar). You should sell if you have a surplus (your character automatically jumps into seller position) and buy if you have a deficit.

14. The auction starts
You are a seller and you lower your price to 40$ per unit
The auction starts with the sellers on the top and the buyers on the bottom. Now the unit line shows the number of units that is traded by the corresponding player, not the units that he owns. Sellers go down to lower the selling price, buyers go up to raise their bid. Lines show the highest bid and the lowest price of all four players. Now all four players act simultaneously until the time bar has run out.

15. Settle the transaction
You make the deal
When the buying line and selling line meet, the buyer and seller start to flash and the transaction starts, always one unit at a time. The money of the buyer diminishes the money of the seller increases and the trading units of seller and buyer rise. Every player can end the transaction at any time by moving his character away from the line. Otherwise the transaction will go on until the seller has no units any more or the buyer has spent all his money.

16. Game overview (Status Summary)
After the first move you have lost a bit
The game overview shows your points (the net value) after each round. Don't be annoyed if you find yourself on the last place. The player who trails back gets some benefits. E.g., if you and another player try to get the same parcel in a land grant you will receive it. And if you and another player try to buy or sell for the same price you will make the deal.

17. Shifting of M.U.L.E.s
Later in the game you can shift M.U.L.E.s that you have already installed into another parcel or equip it for another type of production. To shift a M.U.L.E. go with or without a M.U.L.E to your parcel. When you press the fire button the M.U.L.E. that you lead (if you lead one) will be installed and the previously installed will now follow you. You can now install it on another parcel or newly equip it (in the town). If you have no use for it, then lead it to the Corral, you will get back $100 for it.
Now you are ready for the "Beginner" level of M.U.L.E. The game in this mode has 6 rounds. The one that has the highest net value (total) at the end is the winner.

 Random influences

Fire in the shop: the shop loses all its collected stock, which most of the time causes a crisis.

Earthquakes: halfes the mining production

Pirate attacks: Crystite/Smithore production (depending on the difficulty grade) is stolen

Acid rain: raises the food production, but lowers the energy production

Radioactivity: a M.u.l.e. goes crazy and runs off

Solar storms: raises the energy production

Meteorite impact: creates another high-quality Crystite field.

Pest Attack: all food in a plot is destroyed

Inheritations
Gifts, etc. (one player).

 Tips

The river plots are ideal for the cultivation of food
When having food shortage the player has less time for his actions
Flat land is ideal for the cultivation of energy
Little energy leads to a poor harvest
Smithore should preferrably be grown in the mountains
Plots near the shop are more interesting, as shorter ways can be covered faster
growing areas of the same kind (somewhere on the planet) generate synergy effects
Adjacent growing areas of the same kind also generate synergy effects
Crystite sources can be discovered through a soil sample
When you have ended all your actions you should end your round in a pub and play
The earlier you go into the pub, the higher the profit can be
Hunting Wampus is more fun, playing in the pub is more profitable in the end
The pirates can appear up to two times per game

Solution

Successful game with one humanoid player against 3 computer opponents on tournament level (by Robotron2084):

The first plot must be a river plot to secure the supply of food. The next plot should be a flat plot which adjoins the first, no matter if bought or received through the land grant. Maybe one should consider to choose another river plot as the second plot to use this at first for the production of energy.
At the start of the game it is an advantage to be at third or fourth place in the score list, as then one is preferredly treated in auctions and in random incidents.

The game is solely won through CRYSTITE, this resource gets you the most money. Therefore the game must be layed out so that you can buy many Crystite plots that are as good as possible.
Per game there are 3 randomly distributed Crystite plots with the quality grade HIGH on the map. Every HIGH plot is surrounded by 4 MEDIUM plots, every MEDIUM plot by 3 LOW plots. There can be overlaps, when 2 HIGH plots are too close to each other. Also the screen border works as an artificial limit and it can happen, that Crystite plots are placed in the river and therefore cannot be used, as in the river no mining can be done.

As the results of all soil samples that are done during the game are shown publicly, you can guess the approximate position of the HIGH plots by deduction.
At the beginning of the game it is indispensable to hunt the Whampus, the extra money is needed urgently to take part in auctions or to buy missing resources.
After about round 4 there should be enough money to buy all the Crystite that is sold by the computer players below market price (less than 90$), to be able to sell it in the next round for better conditions. 

To get money you sell the computer food and energy for exorbitant prices. It is an advantage, to create food and energy crises yourself, by drying the shop with surplus money and buying all the units that the computer wants the sell to the shop. Also you should wait for the computer players to sell the shop dry, then you can ask almost any price from them, but you should also make sure that you serve as many as possible.

Usually it is enough to own one plot for food (river plot), and one energy plot for 2 Crystite plots.
You can leave the business with smithore fully to the computer players and keep yourself up with selling food and energy, until it is clear where the good Crystite plots are, then you can change savagely over to Crystite.

Be careful with the stockkeeping: if you have more than 50 units of a resource, the rest will automatically go to seed!

To reach a very good Colony score you will bound to provide additional plots for energy and food. The computer neglects these resources carelessly expecially towards the end of the game and the hence resulting loss of production will have a negative effect on the score. Furthermore, their money is better kept with you!

And very important once again: keep all plots as close as possible together, this improves the production even on qualitatively bad plots a lot!
Good Luck!

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Description from the packaging:

A typical friendly evening of M.U.L.E.
We pick up out players during their sixth development. They will play twelve. If their colony isn't successful by then, they face the prospect of a long, cold trip back to Mother Earth. Which is fine for 11-year-old Charlie. But Mom and Dad have to go to work tomorrow.
Dad: The Honest Pigeon.

Playing the blue, he's about to install a second M.U.L.E. to farm his river land. This will give him an overwhelming surplus of food- if pest attacks don't get to it first.
Mom: The Stalker of the Stalker.

Playing the red, she's about to get out of mining and into energy development. She will tell the others she just want to provide everyone with lots of nice energy to keep the game lively. Silently, she's planning to quadruple the price per kilowatt and bring them all to their knees.
Charlie: The Stalker.

Playing the green, he suspects Dad's got secret intentions of getting into mining. But Charlie's ready for him. Before Dad has a chance to make his move, Charlie's going to cripple him by letting lots of M.U.L.E.s loose, driving up the price of Smithore. Guess who owns all the Smithore.
The Computer: Well, he's new to this.

Playing the orange, he's making mistakes left and right. He's unfortunately forgotten that food doesn't grow in the mountains. He's obviously a little slow during land auctions. And even with 48K of memory, he isn't smart enough to catch the Wumpus. Maybe he's just trying to get his new family to like him.
